While on eBay the other day, I noticed a listing for a Southern Pacific EMD NW switcher with DCC and sound for a very reasonable price. I used the Buy It Now feature and purchased it, only to find out that it was being sold be someone I knew! This is the first sound equipped loco I will be in possession of, and it will be interesting to see whether I will need to make any CV program changes to make all the sound related functions available for my DCC system. If all goes well, there is a plan in the Motive Power Procurement department to purchase some more sound equipped locos, which will mean the train room / Playstation / sun room will possibly become considerably noisier. I have my eye on a sound equipped Pennsylvania RR switcher which will represent an un-repainted Conrail unit (quite possible in the era I model) and a sound equipped Union Pacific switcher (both Alco S series switchers). The switchers already mentioned would be foreign road power on my layouts, but I also have my eye on a sound equipped Fairbanks Morse H10-44 switcher which (in my railroads plausible universe) would be the Dolton switcher and would probably replace the 2 of the 3 GE units I currently use making switching my HO scale Dolton / Illinook industry park modules more interesting.
What I would do with the non-sound equipped locos that get replaced with sound equipped ones I have not yet made up my mind. But there is a possibility that I would sell them off cheap as a batch or separately.
You may wonder why I would purchase a Southern Pacific locomotive when the locale I model is Chicago,IL. Here is the reason: In the virtual interchanging group I am a member of, there is another member whose railroads reporting mark is MPAC (Midland Pacific), a freelanced Class 1 railroad operating west of Chicago that has some un-repainted Southern Pacific diesels in its motive power stable. One of MPACs yards is in the Blue Island area, not far from the IHB Blue Island yard and from the locale my layouts are supposed to represent, Dolton,IL. And it is common for cars to or from other members railroads to go via MPAC rails for at least part of the their journey. So now an MPAC transfer run can be modelled on my layouts. This has been a long time goal of mine, and now at last it looks like its going to happen.
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